Vichhay Roeung

"Even when I danced erect
by the Nile’s garden
I constructed Necropolis.
 
Ten million fellaheen cells
of my body floated stones
to establish a white museum."
 
Grisly, foul, and terrific
is the speech of bones,
thighs and arms slackened
 
into desiccated sacs of flesh
hanging from an armature
where muscle was, and fat.
 
"I lie on the painted bed
diminishing, concentrated
on the journey I undertake
 
to repose without pain
in the palace of darkness,
my body beside your body."

when my father had been dead a week
I woke
with his voice in my ear
I sat up in bed
and held my breath
and stared at the pale closed door
 
white apples and the taste of stone
 
if he called again
I would put on my coat and galoshes

If he and she do not know each other, and feel confident
they will not meet again; if he avoids affectionate words;
 
if she has grown insensible skin under skin; if they desire
only the tribute of another’s cry; if they employ each other
 
as revenge on old lovers or families of entitlement and steel—
then there will be no betrayals, no letters returned unread,
 
no frenzy, no hurled words of permanent humiliation,
no trembling days, no vomit at midnight, no repeated
of a body floating face-down at the pond’s edge